


One Kind White Lie

by Dorkangel



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), X-Men (Movies)
Genre: BAMF Logan, Bullying, For EVERYONE he meets, Foreshadowing, Gen, Logan Is A Surrogate Dad, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Steve Has Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-01
Updated: 2014-10-01
Packaged: 2018-02-19 12:54:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2388926
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dorkangel/pseuds/Dorkangel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Well, Bucky's not around, and fourteen year old Steve Rogers sees someone getting bullied and jumps right in to save them.<br/>And, naturally, gets the crap beaten out of him.<br/>Luckily, Logan overhears. And he rescues Steve and helps him home.</p><p>This is not that story. This is the story of the conversation they had on the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One Kind White Lie

**Author's Note:**

> More quickly-written crack.

Pre-Serum Steve/Logan

Logan had been walking along the street with Victor when he heard it. First higher voices, then louder yelling, all coming from an alley down the side. His eyebrows furrowed in concern, where Victor just snorted, amused, and they both sniffed the air. It tasted of guilt and fear and the desire to do people smaller than you harm.  
Victor glared at him. "Don't you dare, Jimmy. Some kids pushing some other kids around, not our problem."  
Logan grunted and ignored him, and walked slowly into the alley, just in time to see some tiny ginger kid with a cloth cap hurtle out, tripping and stumbling over the cobblestones as fast as he could. The bigger guys weren't chasing him, though, and that meant trouble in Logan's book, because it meant they'd found a better target.  
That would be the absolutely diminutive blonde guy, then, with a lip already split and his arms pinned behind his back by a young man maybe three times his size.  
The bullies didn't look that smart, reasoned Logan. Most people'd take one look at him and back down, but not these guys, and he didn't want them getting killed. Just maimed a little, maybe.  
"Hey," he growled, catching all of their attention, especially that of the squirming little guy. "If I were you, I'd leave him alone."  
The assholes glanced at each other and laughed dumbly. "Why'd we do that?" asked the biggest, flexing his pathetically superficial biceps.  
Logan took a breath and calmly punched the wall, smashing two bricks and making the whole thing buckle and crack - breaking three of his fingers in the process, and ripping half the skin off his hand, but he healed before they noticed that - and turned back to the now trembling assholes.  
"Because if you don't, I'll do the same fuckin' thing with yer faces."  
Nonplussed, the assholes departed, dumping the kid on the dirty ground. Logan sighed and marched over to pull him upright. Victor would be well ahead of him by now. Probably at a bar already.  
"Jesus," he said, ignoring the way the kid stumbled a little and stared at him, wide-eyed. "You really are a scrawny little shit, aren't you?"  
"Gee, thanks." said the kid, loaded with such resigned sarcasm that Logan snorted a gruff bark of laughter.  
"Can you get home on your own?"  
The line of his jaw tightened. "Yes."  
His words were determined, but also clearly not true. The kid had not only a bust lip, but also a sprained ankle and looked like he'd possibly dislocated something.  
"Bullshit." pronounced Logan. "Come on, where'd'ya live?"  
The kid stared at him for a moment, then drooped, resistance failing, and waved an arm in the general direction of the docks, letting Logan slide a arm around his shoulders and help him.  
"I'm Steve, by the way," he said quietly. "Steve Rogers."  
"Logan."  
"Just Logan?"  
"James Logan," he admitted. "But no one calls me James."  
Well, Victor called him Jimmy, but that was private.  
"Why were those guys even whaling on you in the first place?" said Logan, hurriedly changing the subject. Steve paused to pick up a grubby cap from where it had fallen on the ground and shove it firmly down onto his head.  
"They weren't, it was that boy. Dean Finnegan. They were making fun of him because he's Irish."  
Logan crooked a disbelieving eyebrow. "And you jumped in and told them to lay off? YOU?"  
"Yeah, why not?" Steve's tone was defensive against Logan's incredulous, and Logan realised he'd have to phrase it more carefully.  
"How old even are you?"  
"Fourteen."  
"So, tiny-ass fourteen year old like you," said Logan, ignoring Steve's annoyed look. "Probably got asthma and a thousand other conditions, don't lie, and you still decide to help Gingey Whatsisname?"  
"Dean Finnegan's only ten, and I don't like bullies."  
"Bet you don't."  
"What's that supposed to mean?"  
"Nothin', nothin'." They were at a crossroads and Logan waited until Steve waved him left before continuing.  
"Eh, you'll probably hit a growth spurt." reasoned Logan, fairly neutral. "I did."  
"Huh?" Steve decided that he'd worry about that last comment later, if at all.  
"I was smaller'n you, easy. 'Course, I had my older brother looking after me, and I wasn't dumb enough to get into fights like you are, apparently."  
"Gee, thanks."  
"Don't your parents mind that you do it?"  
That shut the kid up pretty quick. Eventually he answered, voice soft and kind of sad.  
"My parents are dead. My dad was a soldier and my mother was a nurse- you know, in the war."  
Logan hesitated too, but he too spoke. "Me too. I fought."  
"You must have been a kid!" accused the minute teenager, wincing as he shifted oddly and his bruises twanged in pain.  
"I guess you could've called me that. I'm older than I look, Steve."  
"You must have been awful brave." The kid's voice was practically worshipful.  
"No," growled Logan in reply. "It was awful. Don't romanticise it. It was the worst thing in the world. And if your parents were in it, then bad for them."  
"I was born after it ended." Steve admits slowly.  
"Then that was a good time to be born. Say, if you don't live with-"  
"My friend Bucky and his family look after me."  
"Bucky? He watch out for you when you decide to get into fights?"  
"Yeah. He's only a couple of years older than me."  
"Good for you."  
"This is, uh, it. My building."  
Logan stopped and unhooked his arm from Steve, glancing over him. "You alright?"  
"Yeah, I'll be fine."  
"Don't start any more stupid fights, ok?"  
"No promises, sir."  
Logan shrugged. "Fair enough."  
With that he stuck his hands in his pockets and began to march away, only to hear the kid's voice behind him again.  
"Logan? Do you really think I'll get bigger? Hit a growth spurt?"  
He turned on his heel and observed the small figure. Not a chance in hell he would, that guy'd be small his whole life.  
"Sure, you'll shoot right up. Give it a couple of years, muscles and all."  
One kind white lie was hardly going to kill him.


End file.
